Cheney feared heart-device hack

What isn’t widely known is that the former vice president had the wireless feature of his implanted defibrillator disabled so nobody could attempt to assassinate him by hacking into the device.

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During a “60 Minutes” interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta scheduled to air on CBS this Sunday, Cheney said his cardiologist feared a terrorist could send a signal to the device to make him go into cardiac arrest.

“And it seemed to me to be a bad idea for the vice president to have a device that maybe somebody on a rope line or in the next hotel room or downstairs might be able to get into— hack into,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner said, according to the show’s transcript. “And I worried that someone could kill you.”

When asked whether his physical condition affected important decisions on Afghanistan, Iraq and surveillance programs, the vice president demurred. He also said he wasn’t worried about studies that show a connection between severe heart disease and memory loss.

“You know, I was as good as I could be, you know, given the fact I was sixty-some years old at that point and a heart patient,” he said.